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Saturday, January 18, 2014

New Tools, New Challenges

This past summer when I was participating in the Aiming For Accuracy Quilt Along, I won these new quilting gloves, by Marcia Baraldi.

I've always used these tight fitting garden gloves whenever I quilted and really loved the control they gave me when moving the quilt during free motion quilting. What I didn't like about using my garden gloves is that I had to remove them every time I started/stopped to pull my threads through the quilt.

I've been using these new gloves for the last few days, determined to get used to them. What made these new gloves so appealing is also what makes them so challenging. Yes, it left my fingers open so that I could work with the threads and not have to remove the gloves but it made me realize that I primarily use my fingers when manipulating the quilt sandwich through the machine. I've had to readjust how I handle the quilt, leveraging more pressure on my palms and the heel of my palm, not my fingertips. It's getting easier, but it's not second nature. Not yet anyways, but I'm guessing it will be by the time I'm done with this quilt.

I've tried all kinds of things and never quite been satisfied. My favorite of the bunch are the whole quilting gloves. My hands get so hot and uncomfortable. I've been considering cutting the tips off to help with that. Maybe I should... :)

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